


My Whole Existence Is Flawed

by colonel_bastard



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Breathplay, Choking, Dry Humping, Frottage, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Trust Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 12:39:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1779448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colonel_bastard/pseuds/colonel_bastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the ortolans, Hannibal invites Will to participate in a trust exercise.  Will accepts.  Things spiral out of control fairly quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Whole Existence Is Flawed

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a belated birthday gift for [thewinkingelephant](http://thewinkingelephant.tumblr.com/), who simply wanted to see Will Graham choke Hannibal Lecter into unconsciousness. Like the two participants in this story, I got a little carried away with the prompt. 
> 
> Title is taken from the Nine Inch Nails song [Closer.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccY25Cb3im0)
> 
> _____________

They finish the meal in relative silence. Hannibal’s black panther eyes keep watch from across the table, lazy and half-lidded with smug contentment. Will wonders what victory smells like. He wonders if Hannibal’s sensitive nostrils are overwhelmed with the scent of it. 

When the plates have been cleared away, Will expects dessert. Instead Hannibal resumes his seat, his hands folded neatly on the pristine oak before him. For a long moment they sit and study each other. Will is carved from stone. He’s waiting for Hannibal to make the first move. He’ll wait forever if he has to. Hannibal tilts his head, and Will sees a flash of the panther idly flexing his claws.

“You should be proud of yourself, Will,” Hannibal says, his face a mask, unreadable. “This ortolan was only the latest of many rites of passage you have undergone in recent days. To strive for so much so quickly is an admirable effort.” He allows a grace note of respectful acknowledgment before pressing forward. “Yet I would like you to ask yourself: of all the rituals you have begun, have you truly completed any of them?”

Will arches an eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate.

“How do you mean?”

“Every rite of passage consists of three phases.” Hannibal’s eyes, _sharp,_ tracking his every movement. “The first is the separation from the past self, with behavior signifying the detachment of the individual from an earlier fixed point in the social structure.” 

The names hover on the air unspoken, _Randall Tier, Freddie Lounds,_ the unseen guests that join them for every dinner, two Banquos for the price of one. Will grimaces, a predatory flash of teeth to signal his understanding. _Yes. I have detached myself._ Hannibal’s mouth curls at the corner in response. 

“The second phase is the transition, during which the individual has left one point but has not yet entered the next.” He purses his lips. “Between these two points, the individual is incomplete, unanchored. Detached from the old self but not yet attached to the new.”

“A liminal state,” Will says. 

“You have emerged from the chrysalis and your wings have dried, but you have not yet tested your capacity for flight.” The pressure in Hannibal’s voice increases by the slightest margin. “You have not tested the limits of what you have become.” _There it is,_ a flicker in the mask, as Hannibal takes a fractional pause to savor the thought before he speaks it. “What _we_ have become.”

Will’s gut clenches. His face never moves. 

“And what have we become, Dr. Lecter?” 

Hannibal gives an almost imperceptible shrug. To him, this is a simple fact, to be presented as such. 

“Connected,” he says.

It is an _indisputable_ fact. A thousand invisible threads now criss-cross from one to the other and back again, skull to skull, heart to heart, all stretched taut and trembling in the space between them. When Will shifts his weight he can feel each tiny anchor straining against his skin, as though he’s at the very limit of distance he can keep from Hannibal before he goes too far and the threads yank them back together for a collision. 

“So,” he says, wishing for another glass of wine. “What’s phase three?”

“Reincorporation.” Hannibal recites the technical term, but the reverent tone of his voice speaks the true meaning: _apotheosis_. “The passage must be consummated. Traditionally this is done with a ritual that binds the individual entirely with their new state of being.”

But he doesn’t clarify. He’s waiting for Will to walk into the trap. Will eases into it gently, one toe at a time, bracing himself for the catch of the snare around his ankle. 

“And what do you suggest?” he wonders. 

“I believe that in order to embrace your new self, you must first test the limits of its potential.”

“My limits?” Will asks. “Or ours?”

“Both,” Hannibal replies. “It will be an exercise in trust, if you will.”

Will manages a sardonic chuckle.

“Are we going to take turns falling backwards into each other’s arms?” 

Hannibal doesn’t smile. He is as solemn as a requiem, quiet and coiled and still. Will begins to mirror his behavior, his own bitter smile fading into nothing while his body settles in his chair, until together they form a perfect, silent tableau. When Hannibal speaks again, his voice is low and infinitely calm. 

“You’ve said before that you would kill me with your hands. I would like you to be more specific.” 

Will knows bait in the water when he sees it. Hannibal is fishing. He wants something specific from Will, some as yet unheard confession. Will is running out of those. 

“Killing someone with your hands is an intimate act,” he says. “To speak of it seems... even more so.” He leans forward in his chair, hands folded on the table. “Is that what you seek, Dr. Lecter? Intimacy?”

“I seek clarity,” Hannibal deflects. “There are countless ways to kill. Your choice of method speaks volumes to your state of mind.” 

Will leans back again, acquiescent. 

“I used to think I would beat you to death.” He lets himself bask in the words, in the horrific, stark honesty in them— Hannibal will be satisfied with nothing less. “I saw your face when I killed Randall Tier. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to hit you enough. I swung until my shoulders ached and my knuckles had been scraped raw on your teeth. I swung until your eyes were swollen shut and you were choking on your own blood. And I was right.” 

He pauses. Hannibal is in his peripheral vision but Will is still aware of him, of the slight parting of his lips, his breath catching in anticipation. Will indulges him, pours all of his poison into his tongue and raises his eyes to meet the ones staring at him from across the table. 

“It wasn’t enough.”

Hannibal is enraptured. 

“The evolution of your design has begun to affect your fantasies. They no longer satisfy your desires as they once did. Tell me,” he presses. “What satisfies you now?”

“Now?” 

Will makes a show of studying him, searching for the ideal point of lethal contact. Hannibal watches, unfazed, one predator being examined by another. After some consideration, Will announces his conclusion, cold and intent. 

“I would strangle you.” 

Hannibal exhales, soft. 

“An ambitious choice,” he murmurs with approval. “But remember that I am larger than you, and almost certainly stronger. It would be a considerable challenge.”

“Worth the effort,” Will quips.

Then he narrows his eyes, keen, hunting. Hannibal waits for him. Will has the strangest sense of... invitation. Welcome. He is hyperaware of the moment when Hannibal raises his chin a fraction of an inch. Even though it exposes his throat, it is an undeniably arrogant gesture. Most would read it as a challenge. Will understands what it really is: an offering. 

“I think,” he says slowly. “That if I wanted to strangle you... you would let me.” 

Hannibal offers no response. Will is amazed by how steady his own heart rate remains. 

“I _think_ ,” and his voice is getting stronger with every word. “You’re curious to know what it would feel like.” 

Curiosity killed the cat. They just never said how, or why, or how long it took.

“Show me,” Hannibal says. 

The skin of Will’s palms begins to itch. He bites down on the intense, agonizing urge to lunge straight across the table, to smash through the centerpiece and slam into Hannibal hands first, aiming for his neck. That’s not what Hannibal wants. It’s what _Will_ wants, and right now what he wants doesn’t matter. It’s all about Hannibal, and Hannibal doesn’t want a savage, gladiatorial spectacle. Hannibal wants a ceremony. He wants a _ritual._

Slowly, deliberately, Will rises from his chair. Out of polite instinct Hannibal begins to follow his lead, only to be curbed by Will’s clipped command of “ _stay,_ ” at which point he sinks obediently back into his seat, never speaking a word. 

Maintaining his methodical pace, Will strips off his dinner jacket, folds it neatly over his arm, and lays it across the back of his chair. Then, as he makes his painstaking way around the table that separates him from his mark, he undoes the buttons at his wrists and rolls the sleeves of his dress shirt up to his elbows. Hannibal never takes his eyes off him, his breathing slow and even. 

Will arrives beside Hannibal’s chair. Hannibal has to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact, and yet even in this vulnerable position he shows no trace of fear. Will assumes he’s too clever for that. If he still suspects Will’s loyalty — and Will must always assume that he does — he would know that Will would never kill him like this, in cold blood and outside of the law. The time for that has passed. Now if Will were to ever betray him, it would have to be in the name of justice. There would be no justice in this, and so Hannibal sits and watches, completely calm as Will looms over him. 

“Stay,” Will whispers once more.

Then he moves around to the back of the chair. Hannibal watches him until he goes beyond his line of sight, then turns forward again, blind to whatever is happening behind him. Will looks down at the top of his head, marveling that he doesn’t see horns. 

What happens next plays out like a well-rehearsed dance, their bodies falling naturally into position as though they’ve done it a thousand times before. Will reaches around and curls his right hand around Hannibal’s neck. In answer, Hannibal’s right hand reaches up to clasp his wrist, and when Will’s left hand seizes Hannibal’s forearm, they become locked together. Hannibal’s left hand, the only one still free, rests in his lap. He draws a deep, preparatory breath. 

And Will clamps down hard. 

The reaction is instantaneous and exquisite. Hannibal’s body arches as though touched with electricity, jolting up out of his seat before he forces himself back down into it, his left hand darting out to clutch the edge of the table for leverage. His grip on Will’s wrist tightens— but not nearly to the degree that Will would have expected. If anything, the constriction feels steadying. 

He closes his fingers even more insistently around Hannibal’s throat and is amazed when Hannibal makes no effort to pull his hand away. His body is shuddering in distress, his chest jerking uselessly up and down, his mouth open in a silent gasp. Looking down, Will sees the fingernails of Hannibal’s left hand digging a series of crescent moons into the pristine oak. 

_He’s fighting the urge to fight me._

Will stares down at that white-knuckled grip, all of his senses attuned to the feeling of Hannibal shaking and twitching in the cage of his arms. Seconds stretch on for years. Hannibal’s legs start to churn, sluggish, spasmodic. If he wanted to escape all he would have to do is plant his feet and push backwards, and instead he’s struggling to keep himself as still as possible while Will wrings the life out of him. He’s not going to fight. _He’s not going to fight._

_He trusts me._

A sense of total control bursts over Will’s mind like a firework, drenching the sky with color and light. 

He opens his right hand. 

Air rushes into Hannibal’s lungs so fast that he almost chokes on it. As he coughs and shudders, Will presses against him, his cheek nestled into Hannibal’s hair, eyes closed, drinking up the sound of every ragged breath. _He trusts me._ Hannibal leans into him, reaches up to lay his left hand over Will’s bare forearm. Will’s chest is flush against Hannibal’s broad, powerful shoulders as they rise and fall, rise and fall, steadier and steadier as he regains his wind. _He trusts me._

_He **wants** to trust me._

Will remembers what that felt like. 

_I wanted to trust you, too._

He grits his teeth. 

“It’s not enough,” he rasps. 

Hannibal goes still in his arms. Will’s voice is a dangerous hiss. 

“I want to see your face when I kill you.” 

Pivoting around to the front of the chair, Will grabs Hannibal by the lapels of his jacket and _yanks_ him out of his seat. Although he is certainly the larger and the stronger of the two, Hannibal allows himself to be manhandled, offering no resistance as Will drives him backwards into the nearest wall, pinning him there. 

“After all, that’s the whole point of using my hands, isn’t it?” Will snarls, fists clenched in the rich material of the suit, knuckles digging into Hannibal’s chest. “ _Intimacy._ I need to see the light leave your eyes.”

Hannibal has both hands on Will’s wrists now, his whole body rigid against the urge to lash out in defense. Gone is the stoic, immaculate facade— his mouth is open and panting, his hair falling into his face, his skin glistening with sweat. Will is close enough to see that the pupils of his eyes are blown wide with excitement. 

“Show me,” Hannibal says again.

The grip around Will’s wrists exhorts his hands to move upwards, towards the neck. And with no conscious intention whatsoever, Will finds himself _smiling_. It’s the dazed, delirious smile of a madman— because the more Hannibal submits to him, the more he realizes just how much he’s _enjoying_ this. 

He’s still smiling when his hands reach Hannibal’s throat and _squeeze._

Hannibal shoves his own weight back into the wall to keep from lunging forward. Will can feel the _strength_ in him when he does it, the undeniable ability to completely overpower Will should he ever set his mind to it. _But he won’t. He trusts me._ Hannibal’s hands creep slowly along the length of Will’s arms, shaking fingers crawling up his forearms and past his elbows. Will presses in closer and closer, intoxicated, drunk on Hannibal’s twitching and gasping, his tongue hanging out of his slack mouth, his face turning blood red from the strain. 

It’s mind over body, and Hannibal’s body isn’t giving up without a fight. Shockwaves jolt through him, snaps of the struggle he’s trying to suppress. His hands have made it to Will’s shoulders, where they grab on tight, shuddering with the effort to pull instead of push. One particularly violent spasm reverberates down into his leg, but he manages to redirect the defensive kick back into the wall, his heel colliding with a _bang_ and a dark scuff on the paint. Will growls in answer, in savage recognition of Hannibal’s exquisite survival instinct. He shoves his body even closer, pinning Hannibal with the span of his frame. Then he feels it against his hip. 

Hannibal is hard. 

Will takes an abrupt, automatic step back, creating between them a sudden, aching void. He even loosens his grip on Hannibal’s neck, allowing him to draw in precious oxygen in a series of deep, rough wheezes. Hannibal stares at Will, unashamed, his eyes wild and dark and gleaming. Will stares back, searching, being searched, until it feels as though they’ve already begun to devour each other. 

_We’re connected._ The whisper of his subconscious still manifests as Hannibal’s voice. _The passage must be consummated._ Hannibal never breaks eye contact. _What satisfies you now?_ Will looks, and he sees, and he understands. 

He was right, of course.

Hannibal seeks intimacy.

Will opens his mind and lets himself step into Hannibal’s place. 

Yes, he seeks intimacy. He _craves_ it. But he could never be satisfied by something so base and tedious as a mere physical connection. He needed to find an equal in both mind and spirit, someone who would be able to see and understand his true nature. It would not be a coupling of gentle origin. It would have to be forged in blood and pain and death and rebirth. He would have his intimacy, but at a great cost. It could only be with someone whose loyalty he had tested to its utmost limits. It could only be with someone he trusted enough to put his life in his hands. 

Will can feel Hannibal’s heartbeat in his palms. 

He exhales, dizzy from the rush of blood pouring down to his groin. 

It all comes crashing back down onto him, long-suppressed, long-denied— the memory of their early days together, when he had been unexpectedly _consumed_ by the fevered, desperate hope that maybe _just maybe_ he had found someone that was able to see and understand _his_ true nature. Meeting Hannibal had been like suddenly seeing a familiar face after watching a lifelong parade of strangers pass by. It had never occurred to Will that he might one day feel safe in the company of another person. For him, safety had always been solitude— but then, out of nowhere and all at once, there was the prospect of companionship. 

_I **wanted** to trust you._

No betrayal has ever hurt so deep. Will clapped his hands over the wound and insisted that he was fine, but in reality he was only hiding the horrible truth: after Hannibal stabbed him in the back, he never pulled the knife back out again. The wound is still open, still wrecked and raw and bleeding, because Will is unable to draw out the blade. He would if he could— but try as might, he still can’t forget what it _felt_ like. The connection was too real, too overwhelming, too much. 

He hadn’t just wanted to _trust_ Hannibal. He had wanted _him,_ in every intimate sense of the word. 

It’s the one confession he hoped to hide from them all. All this time he’s managed to keep it to himself, secret, no one’s business but his own. The sense-memory has slept safely under his skin, dormant and intentionally ignored— 

—until now, just now, when his hip brushed against Hannibal’s erection and it all came screaming out of hibernation and ruptured into his bloodstream like venom. 

Now it’s too late. 

Hannibal’s eyes appear almost black. His damp hair is plastered to his forehead, his mouth open, his teeth exposed. He has never looked more feral, and Will has never felt more drawn to him. No one has ever looked at him like this before, with such naked, vicious desire. Will could almost drown in it. He’s lightheaded from the force of this violent collision; the frustrated wet dreams of his febrile past smashing into the awful waking nightmare his life has become. _Hannibal Lecter, flushed and panting with lust, lust for **him**_ — Will used to wake up, gasping, soaked in sweat, with that very image burned onto the insides of his eyelids. 

He used to think that there were a thousand invisible threads connecting them. Only now does he realize that it’s one long thread stitched through him a thousand times, and all it takes is Hannibal pulling on one end of the strand to reel him in. Hannibal licks his lips and Will can feel his own erection pressing against the zipper of his slacks. _It’s too late._ They’re too close now. 

_I’m going to Hell,_ Will thinks. _But at least I won’t be alone._

He shoves his hips forward and presses his erection against Hannibal’s thigh. 

Hannibal gives a deep, guttural groan of satisfaction. The hands on Will’s shoulders skate swiftly down his ribcage to settle at his waist, Hannibal’s long fingers wrapping around his belt to drag him closer. Will kicks the inside of Hannibal’s ankles to drive his legs apart, then rams his knee into the space between them, pulling himself in tight against Hannibal’s body until their hips finally connect. Hannibal’s breath on the side of Will’s neck is rough and ragged. They stay that way, without speaking, for what feels like an eon. 

And it feels good, _so good,_ to have Hannibal pressed against him like this. Will desperately tries to keep his mind present in the moment, but as usual it slips its collar and dashes off, reckless, into the what-ifs and maybes, until he finds himself suffocating under the weight of wondering what it would have been like to have this _before._ Before the darkness. Before the trust had been broken. Will wonders if they could have had something, _really_ had something, back when he still genuinely believed that Hannibal had his best interests at heart. 

He’ll never know. 

And he hates Hannibal for making it that way. 

Clenching his teeth against a sob of rage, he forces himself into motion, rolling his pelvis to grind his erection onto Hannibal’s leg. In the same moment he closes his hands around Hannibal’s throat, cutting off his air. Hannibal’s mouth stretches open wide, though whether this reaction is caused by one act or the other is impossible to tell. He yanks on Will’s belt, once, twice, again and again, urging their bodies into parallel motion. Will follows his suggestion, then takes the lead. 

They scrape and fumble at each other in a mounting rhythm, Will pressing in with all of his weight, leaning into his hands, his _hips_ , grinding Hannibal into the wall with every ounce of strength he possesses. Hannibal clings to Will’s belt, his body shaking and his eyes rolling in his skull as his well-honed survival instinct and his all-consuming arousal fight for dominance in his vicious mind. Again and again they collide, and Will can _feel_ Hannibal pressed against him, hot, _hard_ , separated from him not by prison bars or even the distance between two chairs but just a few thin layers of clothing. 

He has never felt so close to another living being. Compared to this, Margot was a million miles away. 

Will grits his teeth, his mouth filled with acid and bitter smoke. 

Using his grip on Hannibal’s neck, he wrenches him away from the wall, then pivots around and tries to swing him down to the floor with the momentum. Shuddering, choking, Hannibal instinctively resists the attempt, and instead staggers a few short steps, dragging Will along like a ball and chain shackled around his throat. He’s so strong that Will actually loses his footing, stumbling after him to keep his grip. 

“ _Down!_ ” he barks, and when he tries again Hannibal closes his eyes and lets himself be thrown to the floor. He lands hard on his back, where Will allows him one sustained, harrowing moment to cough and gag and fight for air before he follows him down. He straddles Hannibal’s hips and pins him to the floor with his weight, sitting back so he can survey what he’s done. 

Hannibal lies supine under him, and though his breathing has a serrated edge, he’s keeping the tempo slow and even through sheer willpower. They don’t speak. It would be pointless at this stage. Instead, without words, Hannibal reaches up to his own throat and picks apart the knot of his tie. There’s a slight tremor to his hands; he’s at the absolute limit of his control. Nevertheless, he manages to remove the tie with no small amount of elegance, an effect that only grows stronger when he politely undoes the top two buttons his shirt collar, tugging it open so that his throat is now completely exposed.

Will sucks in a sharp breath. The flesh of Hannibal’s neck is already angry and inflamed, raised in dark red welts that take the shapes of fingers and thumbs. Tomorrow his throat will be ringed in bruises, all purple and black and smeared at the edges in ugly yellow. He’ll be hiding these marks for days, maybe even _weeks_ — and yet he displays them now like a child flaunting a flower devoid of petals, every single _he loves me not_ long since discarded and forgotten. _Never mind what came before. It all led to this._

Leaning down over him, Will slides his hands gently, so gently, around Hannibal’s naked neck. No shirt collar to cover him now, no thick silk tie— they’re skin to skin, and Hannibal is so _warm._ Will ghosts his thumbs over the knot of Hannibal’s throat, shivering when it bobs away from his touch, when Hannibal _swallows_ under his palms. Hannibal reaches up to lay a hand on Will’s face, his fingers brushing lightly, adoringly, across his cheek before he pushes them back into the tangle of Will’s hair. 

Then both hands burrow in and grab fistfuls of the dark curls, and Hannibal cants up his hips with a rough, insistent jerk. 

Will hisses at the friction, his legs tightening around Hannibal’s waist. _Don’t do it,_ one last thin voice whispers in the corner of his mind, and then it’s all white noise and boiling heat as he clenches his hands around Hannibal’s throat and sets to rutting against him in a blind, brutal frenzy. 

They never break eye contact. Hannibal rises to meet him at every thrust, arching his back up from the floor to maximize the force of impact between them. His hands feel like they’re trying to split Will’s skull apart in every possible direction, alternately pulling and crushing and dragging, all while his powerful legs kick and heave in wild, uncontrolled tremors. Will bears down on him, unrelenting, unforgiving. The harder Hannibal struggles, the better it feels, the snapping of his hips acquiring a wild, desperate edge as his body fights for air. Will rides him into the ground. Hannibal won’t last much longer. 

It happens in a rush. Will feels Hannibal growing tense, tenser, rigid and shaking from the strain— and then Hannibal comes hard, his body wracked with spasms so violent that he almost bucks Will off of him entirely. His face contorts in exquisite agony, flushed purple from oxygen loss, his mouth wrenched open and drooling. He is completely overwhelmed. Will didn’t even think such a thing was possible.

But it’s not enough. 

It will never be enough. Nothing will ever replace what they’ve already lost, because even as Will basks in the ferocity of his climax, all he can think about is how easy it would be to keep squeezing until he broke Hannibal’s neck. And it’s not fair. This isn’t what he _wanted._ He was so close to finding the connection. So close. 

_I wanted to trust you._

And just when he should let go and step back, Will growls and bears down again with all his weight. 

Even Hannibal senses that it’s gone too far, but by then there’s nothing he can do about it. His hands move from Will’s head to his chest, pushing weakly against it, but at this point he’s so woozy from the loss of oxygen that he can’t do anything but paw uselessly at the front of Will’s shirt. Will ruts against him furiously, hating him, hating how much he _needs_ him, how he’d trade anything and everything for the chance to go back to the beginning and stop this twisted dance before it ever starts. Hannibal writhes and bucks underneath him. Will prays for the strength to hold on until he stops moving. 

_It would be so easy to kill him now._

But then he would be guilty. 

Guilty of what everyone secretly suspects. Guilty of what Hannibal believes him to be. To kill Hannibal now would be to kill himself, making Hannibal the victor, even in death. And that’s not even the worst part. 

Will knows he would miss him too much. 

Hannibal has stopped fighting. His eyes are rolled over white, his body twitching with its final aftershocks. 

_It would be so easy._

“ _God damn it!_ ” Will sobs, and he rips his hands away from Hannibal’s bruised, battered throat just as orgasm splinters through him, cruel and punishing and nowhere close to satisfying. 

Exhausted, Will slumps down on top of Hannibal’s body, his ear against his chest, half for comfort and half to assure himself that Hannibal is still breathing. _There—_ he’s rewarded by a faint, steady wheeze, accompanied by the stubborn march of a heart that refuses to stop beating. He’s unconscious but alive. Will props himself up on his hands, looks down at his wretched face, and before he can stop himself he leans in and presses a fierce, devoted kiss to Hannibal’s undeserving mouth. 

Then he pulls his aching body into a sitting position to wait. Hannibal wakes up only a few seconds later, limbs jerking and eyes snapping wide open and startled, casting about in undisguised confusion before finally settling on Will’s face.

“It’s okay,” Will says in a low murmur. “I’m here.” 

Hannibal stares at him. Then he reaches up and touches his throat with a wondering expression. All at once he sits up fast, too fast, and he has to lean forward with one hand clapped reflexively against his spinning head. Will touches his back to steady him. 

“You’re all right,” he declares, for both their sakes. 

“Yes,” Hannibal confirms, his voice a jagged rasp. “I’m all right.” 

Will helps him to his feet and guides him back to his chair at the dinner table. Hannibal slumps into it, his balance distorted by the grueling experience. Will leaves him sitting there and walks calmly into the kitchen, hyper-aware of the mess in the front of his slacks, the warm, sticky discomfort turning every step into an agonizing reminder of what he’s just done. He goes straight for the correct cupboard and retrieves an empty glass, fills it with water from the pitcher in the refrigerator, and brings it calmly back to the table to press into Hannibal’s waiting hand. 

“Drink this,” he commands. 

Hannibal nods but makes no attempt to do so just yet, his gaze lowered to the floor, his reflection turned inward. Will doesn’t care if he waits all night. He’s already grabbing his dinner jacket and edging towards the door. 

“It’s late,” he says. “I should go.” 

Hannibal looks up at him, the barest glimpse of disappointment visible on his face before his expression becomes coolly neutral once again. 

“I suppose you should,” he croaks, eternally polite. “Good night, Will.” 

“Good night, Dr. Lecter.” 

Will is almost gone. He’s almost _safe_ — but he can’t resist, and like Orpheus ascending from the Underworld, he pauses on the threshold and looks back into the darkness. 

Hannibal has his fingertips pressed against his mouth, his brow furrowed in concentration, as though struggling to identify an unknown taste left behind on his lips. 

Their eyes meet.

The question burns unspoken in Hannibal’s gaze. Will is caught completely off guard. Without thinking, he gives a slow, magnanimous nod of confirmation. 

And Hannibal answers with a faint, furtive hint of a genuine smile. 

Will closes the door softly behind him and walks away into the empty night, his fists clenched at his sides. A thousand invisible threads stretch tighter and tighter with every step he takes.

 _Don’t love him,_ he begs himself. _Please don’t love him._

But of course, it's too late for that now.

 

 

 

 

__________end.


End file.
